"Honor to the earth," the abbot said, "honor to the dead in the passing of the year; honor to the living, in the coming of the new. A Great Year pass… - C. J. Cherryh

The world was getting scary. That was the truth. And it was moving fast. And it wasn’t a good morning. Not at all.

There was a wicked man once who called a hatani. ‘Kill my neighbor,’ he said. ‘That’s not hatani business,’ the hatani said and went away. The wicked man found another hatani. ‘My life is wretched,’ the wicked man said. ‘I hate my neighbor. I want to see him die,’ ‘That is a hatani matter,’ the hatani said. ‘Do you give it into my hands?’ ‘Yes,’ the wicked man said. And the hatani struck him dead. Do you understand the solution?” Thorn

So it fed him his courage back. He drew a deeper breath, reassessed himself and the pathetic ridiculousness, the childishness of the things stored in comp, the nature of the sealed compartments and the relics he lived among. So if she thought that, so if she felt that, then she would not laugh — and the others, these strangers they went to meet — she could handle. As long as she was with him; as long as she found nothing humorous in a man trying to be what he was not — who listened to voices instead of family, who had never had the strength to clear out all the debris of the past; who kept a secret voice that talked to a child who should have long ago grown up; excruciating things. A lifetime of illusions.